- Tested on PC with a RTX 4070 TI in 3440 X 1440 ultra wide screen at more than 120 fps.
- Pathtracing thus deactivated to enjoy maximum fluidity.
- Code transmitted by the publisher
- Five consecutive days for about 40 hours of play in mode Nightmare by boosting these parameters:
- Damage to the player in %: 250/500
- Damage to demons in % : 100/1000
- Maximum aggression of demons in %: 150/150
- Maximum speed in %: 150/150
- Maximum projectile speed: 5/5
- Resource efficiency: 2/5
- % stunning effect: 75/150
- I still have to find five astral keys to retire from Slayer... It will be done!
- Home gameplay in difficulty boosted to maximum.
As with The Ancient Gods, DLC Levels was designed for the most fanatical lovers of franchise. Submitted as « I35 years of Doom », Levels Does he keep his promises? Back on a love letter that might sound like the last baroud of honor of the Slayer. Retro trip Microsoft!
Licensor for better rule
In a decade, what a journey ID Software has taken to give new life to the franchise Doom. Five years after Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax's parent company, never before had the Texas studio seemed as weakened by the lack of care and stupidity of a publisher without any other rudder than short-term profit. Since their brilliant acquisition strategy to align tens of billions of dollars to « enrich » their catalogue of IPs to better close the studios then, Microsoft stopped firing at arm's length. Despite the general indignation of the players and even the historical strikes of the first concerned, the developers, the horizon is dark
You will understand, impossible to start talking about Doom without mentioning these recent waves of redundancies cleverly presented as internal restructurings by Microsoft. A well-oiled jargon that is only too well known to make up massive layoffs plans. With nearly 70% of the politely dismissed staff, we will prefer to use the appropriate term of « purging ». ID Software pays the high price and fits into the new « strategy » the American giant who separated 2.1% of its global workforce. Certainly the studio is not yet directly threatened with closure like Arkane Lyon. However, by separating from all the tenors who have resurrected the franchise, Microsoft is depriving itself of a know-how that took decades before reaching such maturity. Chris Hays, a senior programmer with id Software since 2010, has broken the law of silence that too often prevails in the cultural industry. And he didn't go there four ways to evoke the studio's dissipation:
« We're not the same ID. We're half the same id. What made us special was the people and the relationships between us. »
« Are we going to do something equivalent to an Xbox 360 solo game? Because it's the size of the studio we have now. »
How can we imagine for a moment that a new episode can match the precedents after such a carnage in the ranks of the ID Software? We will never repeat it enough but the concentration in the video game, as in any market, always leads to disaster. So it's shaky by the news that we swallowed this DLC as if it were the last. With every broken demon, we thought we'd go back to those stupid shareholders who led to such a mess. « Let's cut their heads off » As the other would say.
This editorial fiasco is the tree that hides the forest. Behind this lamentable management, one guesses the unrealistic goals set by the Gamepass, an economic model that MaG has always criticized for its intrinsic functioning, which distorts the value of video games as such. Why buy a full pot title, which is more solo, when you can enjoy a trial offer at 1 euro? As a developer, Chris Hays broke a taboo by directly targeting this opaque economic model and condemned to devalue the real value of the cultural object.
« You are not in an economic game model sold. They basically do not understand art. They don't understand games. They do not understand this economic model. »
The spear and shield
As the formula tried and tested in the main game, there is a difficulty at the map with options for customization of enemy aggressiveness, projectile speed and displacement. As many parameters as one has rushed to push to the maximum. Where the last game proudly assumed its philosophy of « stand and fight » and a step back to the ground of the gamedesign, this DLC fights the gravity cards by adding a lance to the gameplay. Instead of averting the green projectiles and the enemy attacks with our shield, this DLC proposes to retaliate to the spear. This new game of Slayer Nothing like a gimmick. A right click of the mouse allows to launch a grapple that sends us into the air at all speed. At each parade, the spear, once improved, takes a red color and can then be projected between the two eyes of the demons, for as long as one knows how to aim under pressure.
Like the shield that became devastating at the end of The Dak Ages, the spear will also be entitled to its lot of improvements that are unlocked by collecting precious crystals. A slight slowing activates when you leave the ground and proudly brandish your spear, a well-positioned headshot returns shrapnel towards the enemies around, etc.. This DLC multiplies gameplay possibilities as never before. Once the shield is recovered, you can even alternate between the gameplay of the original game and that of the DLC, which requires a certain address at all speed, some techniques being assigned to the same place on the mouse. The puzzles and secrets bring diversity without ever constituting a serious obstacle to action. Finally ID Software even capped its fans with retro sequences reproducing the gameplay and graphics of the very first Doom released in 1993.
Time To Kill Demon
At the end of the game, the devs thought of everything and you will have to gather seven astral keys to see the real end. A challenge designed for the diligent fans of the franchise while giving a light Metroidvania side to the ensemble (light I said). Like The Ancient Gods who made the main game look like an apericube, Levels fun to hurt you. Suffice to say that in mode Nightmare and all the difficulty parameters boosted, one learns to spit blood and to swallow it immediately until success. The adventure then takes on airs of die and retry Damn full.
God bless SSDs for almost instant loading times. Some passages will have cost hours before they get there but what satisfaction to destroy demons ever faster. An art that will be summarized in four innocent letters: TTKD. The Time To Kill Demon, in the self-proclaimed jargon of initiates, it is a unit of time and an indicator of the killing of enemies. The closer the TTKD is to 0, the more the chances of surviving the opposing assaults increase according to a good proven old recipe: the best defense is the attack.
Is purgatory over?
No doubt that Levels pushes you to work on your TTKD comma never and this much more for those who have trafficked the game settings. The game even shoots towards a kind of Sekiro under amphetamines during its sequences of all beauty, where one prepares to the fraction of second close to the attacks while we plant our grapple in the bedon of a demon. Our brain Slayerian never cease to surprise us by its permanent adaptation to this joyful bath of guts and hemoglobin. Here a demon teleports at the speed of lightning while invoking hordes of nonstop enemies, there two giant spiders bar you from the road in an open arena.
Levels multiplies the most sadistic configurations and backwards is never a good idea. If you hadn't integrated it yet, the courardise is never rewarded in the saga Doom, where turning one second back to the enemy is systematically synonymous with abdication. Like everything arena shooter The gameplay is therefore based on endless waves of enemies. This barrage of monsters of all kinds pushes us into our last cuts, the loops of sbire of the hells not hesitating to chain the bosses in cascade. This DLC is also sublimated by a much more challenging and powerful OST than the main game The Dark Ages, which was a few steps below Mick Gordon's OST. The question now burns our lips: have we touched the best Doom ? With his difficulty at the map and the return of the verticality married to the defensive posture adopted by The Dark Ages, Levels is indeed the sum of all the Dooms, the one who will gather them all and who will have scored about forty hours on my PC in a few days. Amen!
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After the adrenaline outbreak and the ending credits that appear, comes the descent. Our organization understands that perhaps he has just played the last true Doom. Thanks to ID Software for all these guts and guts shared over the last ten years. If the studio is still far from being buried, Microsoft's latest decisions make us fear an editorial tightening for the next texan games in order to reach a wider audience. The Slayer is always raised from its ashes and provided thatID Software can move as far away as possible from Microsoft. This criticism will be concluded with a few words by Mireille Mathieu (if, if). « And yet this waltz could have lasted forever. So goes life, it's all over. I still have a waltz and my tears... » In all cordiality... « Go to hell Microsoft ». The Doomguy will welcome you there as it should.
For
- Gameplay « verticalorizontal »...
- ... The best of both worlds
- The ultra badass spear
- Generous DLC
- Made by fans for fans
- Graphic optimization for all configs
- OST much better than The Dark Ages
- A game that never gives up difficulty
Against
- What if it's the last Doom?
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